Brunnow said that there was, at one moment, a period of about ten days during which the war might have been prevented, if Lord Granville had been sent off on a special mission to St. Petersburg, but the Cabinet refused; and then came Sinope. He declared that he had always told the Emperor that Aberdeen, though averse to war, had not the power to prevent it; and in proof of his own sincerity he caused a million of Russian money which was in the Bank of England to be removed, as early as September 1853, though this was against the opinion of Nesselrode. After his return to England on the peace, Lord Aberdeen said to him, with great emotion, 'I never deceived you, my dear Brunnow.' To which B. replied: 'No; my dear lord, you never did.' He said that at Paris in 1856 Walewski had at once told him that the Emperor Napoleon was resolved to have peace. It was a most pleasant and curious evening, and everyone went away in good humour. _25th_--Went to Aix with Helen Richardson. Over to Cologne and Kreuznach with the Watneys and Boothbys. Dined with Goldsmid at Bonn. Saw Professor Sybel there. The following letter, on a subject in which Mrs. Oliphant took much interest, was addressed to Reeve rather in his editorial than his personal capacity. The two were very well acquainted, but do not seem to have corresponded in ordinary course. Dunkerque, August 14th. Dear Sir,--You will, I have no doubt, think it extremely womanish and unreasonable on my part to have proposed writing a paper on such a much-discussed subject as Mr. Mill's book, without indicating the manner in which I should treat it; but my object was, first, to know whether it was open, and if you would be disposed, other things harmonising, to entrust it to me. I will not say, as was my first impulse, that your own intention of taking up the subject is quite sufficient answer for me; for, of course, you are the best judge in that respect, and I am really anxious to have an opportunity of saying my say, with gravity and pains, on a matter so important. I entirely agree with you in your opinion of Mr. Mill's theory of marriage and the relations between men and women. I think it is not only fallacious, but a strangely superficial way of regarding a question which is made only the more serious by the fact that a great deal of suffering and much injustice result, not from arbitrary and removable causes, but from nature herself, and those fundamental laws which no agitation can abrogate.